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Somewhere between Fall and Winter south Texas actually got some snow! That’s probably the third time in nine years. I know this because my oldest son keeps track of these things. Now that the winter freeze is over and Texas Winter has returned us to the mid 60s F we can resume brewing. The previous NEIPA batch was a huge success in a number of ways so obviously with all three kegs almost gone it’s time to brew another.

The previous batch dropped the gravity down to session levels around 4.6%. I certainly don’t mind or even notice many of the higher ABV NEIPAs in the 6 to 8% range; well that is until I’m two or three pints in and then I’m wishing they were 4% instead so I could have a few more. One challenge with sessions is retaining mouthfeel, however, given the huge amounts of oats and barley in the recipe that isn’t an issue.

The second experimental element in the previous batch was using a mixed-culture yeast that I typically reserve for sour beers. However, it’s a faithful yeast which is known to ferment beers to complete (or nearly there) dryness. I also figured that if the culture did turn a bit sour that wouldn’t be out of place for a NEIPA designed after “juice” anyhow.

Upon the first samples of the beer as it fermented it was quite evident that it was taking a sharp turn down grapefruit lane. That worked out quite well but it did mean that for this recipe the hop bill was going to take a turn toward the more tropical and stone fruits.

Process-wise, no changes. The critical part of brewing stage has been stirring the hops in the filter. The 5-minute charge gets a stir after stopping the heat and then the hop stand gets multiple stirs, every 5 to 10 minutes. While opening the lid means some of the volatile aromas escape the stirring overcomes that loss by extracting more flavors, oils and aroma by saturating the whole batch with the hops.

For this batch, I wanted to make use of some aromatic hops that I had around in smaller quantities so I have quite a few more varieties than last time replacing the Meridian and Cascade hops used previously. I also recently had an Idaho #7 hopped beer at Pinthouse Pizza and whole-heartedly approved of those flavors and aromas and chose to have it come along for this NEIPA.

Yeast

Name

Lab

Attenuation

Temperature

London Ale III (1318)

Wyeast Labs

73%

64°F - 74°F

Mash

Step

Temperature

Time

Saccharification

152°F

60 min

Mash Out

168°F

10 min

Notes

Nor'easter V2

- Really need the rice hulls with all of the rolled oats and barley- Giving London Ale III yeast a try. Not sure about the sugar addtion or not. I really do want a dry beer; so we'll see how gravity drops and if it gets sluggish around 1.020 , I'll likely add some to keep the fermentation going and drop the final gravity.- Stirring the hop additions *really* makes a huge difference.

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I recently spent two weeks in New York City for work. One of my co-workers was coming in from the Boston area via train. This afforded him a really special perk: BYOB! That’s right, you can bring your own beer along for the ride. My friend was nice enough to bring some of the finest NorthEast IPAs that he could get his hands on including Trillium, Baby Genius, Industrial Arts Wrench and quite a few others.

I’ve recently brewed a NEIPA beer which turned out much better than expected for a first-time recipe. It was very well received and the only correction for my palette was the maltier character that came from a 50% Marris Otter grain bill. After almost drowning in NEIPAs in New York I have been craving to update my Session IPA done with the techniques and hopping rate used in Hop Candy. Today is that day. Here’s the recipe and follow along brewday below.

Yeast

Name

Lab

Attenuation

Temperature

French Saison (3711)

Wyeast Labs

80%

65°F - 77°F

Mash

Step

Temperature

Time

Saccharification

152°F

60 min

Mash Out

168°F

10 min

Notes

Calma Muerta Attempt #1

WLP090 Recommendations:"Make sure you make a proper sized starter, pitch cool at 65˚F then set your regulator to 66˚F, let it rock for 3 days, then raise the temp to 70˚F for acouple days to encourage complete attenuation and reabsorption offermentation byproducts. At this point, I usually crash the beer to 32˚F fora couple days then keg per my typical method, pouring the first pint acouple days later." -- http://brulosophy.com/2014/10/06/is-san-diego-really-all-that-super-a-yeast-comparison/

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Local grocery store as a new curbside pickup… hrm, I wonder if they fill 22 gallons of Reverse Osmosis water? Guessing not.

You’re damn right that RO water is an Emergency Essential to my IPAs.

Crush em all! Even the Flaked Barley and Flaked Oats!

Split the crushed grain into two buckets since I’m mashing in solo today.

Don’t forget to heat the sparge water… this time.

Transfer, sparge time. Glad I remembered to heat the sparge water.

Look at that layer of sparge water over the grains. I was surprised at how well the grain flowed without any rice hulls and all of the barley/oats which were pretty dang gooey.

Brew day requirement: special beer from the shed. Today I pulled out a Jester King Biere de Miel Honey Sour Saison from 2014. The story behind this beer is pretty neat. Garret of Jester King at the time related that this first batch was brewed in December here in Texas which has quite cool mornings but is nothing like fall or summer where at dawn it’s already 70F or 80F+. The interesting part was that beer reached terminal gravity much faster than they expected despite the lower temperatures. It turns out that the Jester King mixed-culture is somewhat unique in that at cooler temperatures the bacteria tends to take over if the sacchromyces isn’t warm enough and it resulted in a beer that’s pH was quite a bit lower than expected. The result is this perfect balance of malt, honey sweetness and strong but soft lactic acidity. Even after 3 years the beer holds up very well.

Oh right, *lots* of hops needed. This is just the 5 minute addition and the steep. There are still two more rounds of this same size (~9oz) for two dry-hop additions. Also special Equinox Cyro-hop injection at steep time for shits and gigs.

That’s right, another massive does at steep time. I decided to do a bit more hands on with the hops this time. Normally I just leave the hops in the basket and move along. However this time I stirred the hops continuously to help distribute as much of the hop oils as possible. When I added the hops for steeping I also stirred and then I lowered the hop basket to the bottom of the kettle and since the wort is not longer boiling it stays put exposing more wort to the hops. Let’s see if that pays off.

The session IPA I brewed earlier this year was a resounding success. Exactly what I wanted and the kegs floated way faster than I imagined. I also had a chance to share some with Joe Mohrfeld. He was very kind with his response and even gave me a few tips on tuning it even closer. In particular, switching out the El Dorado hops for Azzacca to swing the flavors back toward a grapefruit citrus. And of course, *more* dry-hop! Here’s v3 now with more PHP power!

Yeast

Mash

Step

Temperature

Time

Protein Rest

131°F

20 min

Saccharification

148°F

45 min

Mash Out

168°F

10 min

Notes

Calma Muerta Attempt #1

WLP090 Recommendations:"Make sure you make a proper sized starter, pitch cool at 65˚F then set your regulator to 66˚F, let it rock for 3 days, then raise the temp to 70˚F for acouple days to encourage complete attenuation and reabsorption offermentation byproducts. At this point, I usually crash the beer to 32˚F fora couple days then keg per my typical method, pouring the first pint acouple days later." -- http://brulosophy.com/2014/10/06/is-san-diego-really-all-that-super-a-yeast-comparison/

With the new conical requiring larger batches (15 gallon minimum for using the cooling coils), I definitely need a beer that I can drink often. The previous Le Petite Prince (LPP) from Jester King, clone batch went amazingly quick (did I drain that keg myself? maybe…), even if the flavor profile wasn’t exactly spot on. I cheated the natural process and didn’t bother bottle/keg conditioning, but rather force carbonating which definitely prevents some flavors from developing that normally would when naturally carbonating.

I’ve got 15 gallons of LPP ready to be bottled this week and the next beer is going to be a “clean” session IPA, fashioned after Pinthouse Pizza’s Calma Muerta. A few months ago I got to talk with Joe Mohrfeld there and discussed some details of the recipe which prompted me to take another stab at getting it right.

Yeast

Mash

Step

Temperature

Time

Protein Rest

131°F

20 min

Saccharification

148°F

45 min

Mash Out

168°F

10 min

Notes

Calma Muerta Attempt #1

WLP090 Recommendations:"Make sure you make a proper sized starter, pitch cool at 65˚F then set your regulator to 66˚F, let it rock for 3 days, then raise the temp to 70˚F for a couple days to encourage completeattenuation and reabsorption of fermentation byproducts. At this point, I usually crash thebeer to 32˚F for a couple days then keg per my typical method, pouring the first pint a coupledays later." -- http://brulosophy.com/2014/10/06/is-san-diego-really-all-that-super-a-yeast-comparison/